


Making Space and Time

by Lissadiane



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Hopeful Ending, Lost Dogs, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Single Parent Derek, Stiles Stilinski Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Stiles the EMT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 06:09:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7497018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lissadiane/pseuds/Lissadiane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s dark and it’s cold and it’s gray and he kicks off his shoes and he clothes and he curls up on his little bed and he stares up at the sloped ceiling and he breathes, because this is the place he always comes to catch his breath after a long shift, only this time, the air seems to rattle in his lungs, like his chest is empty too.</p>
<p>But he sleeps, a deep, dreamless sleep, and hopes it will be better when he wakes.</p>
<p>In which Stiles is sad and lonely until the day he finds a dog that's just as lost as he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making Space and Time

**Author's Note:**

> There are so many awful things happening in the world, and it was really getting to me, so today I decided I would write a fluffy story about Stiles finding Derek's missing dog in an attempt to cheer myself up. This is not quite the story I set out to write, but is apparently the story I needed to write. Don't worry; it isn't as miserable as it sounds.
> 
> Warning: This story primarily features Stiles and his mental state, so it does deal with depression and possibly some PTSD. Also possible animal abuse (which is mild and happens outside of the narrative).

The problem isn’t that Stiles is lonely, or depressed, or anything like that. He knows he’s got a lot of amazing people in his life who love him – he’s got his dad, and Scott, and Allison, and Melissa, and Erica, and Boyd, and everyone he works with. And sure, his friends are busy now with their own young families, but they always make sure they have time for him, and work keeps him busy – too busy. Shift work, crazy hours, long, draining days, and days off spent sleeping in recovery, it’s all contributed to his inability to hang on to a relationship, even if he had the energy to do it, which he doesn’t.

The problem is that Stiles is an EMT, and he sees a lot of shit, every day. He _loves_ his job, he loves helping, he loves knowing that he’s having an impact, that he is responsible for everything from cradling the head of someone who’s been in an accident to prevent spinal damage to putting pressure on wounds to stop them from bleeding out to bracing broken limbs to holding children’s hands as they’re rushed to the hospital for everything from terrible injuries to fevers, rashes and asthma attacks. He loves being a source of comfort, of protection, of safety, of being able to say, “It’s okay, I’m here to help,” and knowing how to help.

But it builds up – the stress, the anxiety, the times where he does all he can do and it isn’t enough, the times when the wounds are caused by someone who the victim loves and _that_ hurts more than the bruises and the broken bones.

So he’s sad.

And when he gets home in the early morning hours of one particular Thursday, just as a watery, weak dawn is breaking over the horizon, Stiles can’t help but feel that sadness goes deeper than it usually does – it’s in his bones, his lungs, all the way down to his heart.

And home is an attic apartment in an old home that had been converted into apartments forty years before. It’s dark and the floors and windows creek, the ceilings are sloped and slanted in odd ways, the bedroom is closet-sized and the living room has a bay window that looks out over the Preserve, and Stiles loves it, he does. There is character here. It’s safe and it’s home, it’s just, this time… this time it’s so empty.

It’s dark and it’s cold and it’s gray and he kicks off his shoes and he clothes and he curls up on his little bed and he stares up at the sloped ceiling and he _breathes_ , because this is the place he always comes to catch his breath after a long shift, only this time, the air seems to rattle in his lungs, like his chest is empty too.

But he sleeps, a deep, dreamless sleep, and hopes it will be better when he wakes.

And it is, a little. The sun is shining, birds are singing, and Stiles has the weekend off. So he feels cautiously optimistic when he leaves his apartment Thursday afternoon to get groceries.

He visits his dad at the station, he treats himself to dinner at the diner down the street, and he wanders the aisles at the grocery store picking out everything he’ll need for the next week’s meals, and then he packs up his jeep to go home and hears someone – something? – crying down the alley.

Stiles is a _paramedic_. Of course he’s going to check it out.

So he calls, “Hello? Is anyone there? Are you hurt?” and the whimpering stops abruptly. He goes to investigate.

He’s about to give up when there’s a shuffling sound from behind an old crate. He pulls the crate away and his eyes go wide because he’s not a hurt child at all, it’s a _puppy_.

The dog is all muddy, tangled fur and wide brown eyes, some sort of spaniel, and she’s cowering and trembling but even still, her tail wags, and she isn’t wearing a collar.

“Oh god,” he says, because he knows how to help a human child but a puppy is beyond his skill set, and when he tries to carefully pick this one up, she yelps like she’s in pain.

So he calls Scott.

“Scott!” he says. “Are you busy?”

“I’m at work,” Scott says slowly. “So, probably, yeah. I mean, I’m on my way to give a cat some shots, so if this is an emergency, I probably have a minute or two, what’s up?”

“I found a dog,” Stiles says. “A puppy? It’s muddy and I think it’s hurt and I don’t know what to do.”

“Is she alert? Conscious? Are there any obvious wounds? Did you see what happened? Is she bleeding? Does she seem aggressive?”

“Uh,” Stiles says. “She’s wagging her tail and covered in mud but she was crying. No blood that I can see? I found her in an alley.”

“You’re a paramedic,” Scott says. “The same concepts apply. Bring her to a doctor.”

“I don’t know if any of the doctors at the hospital will know what to do—”

“I meant me, Stiles.” Scott huffs a little. “Vets are real doctors, I keep telling you. Listen. If she’s not aggressive, lift her carefully, maybe use a jacket or sweater as a sort of sling to carry her without hurting her too badly. Bring her here, I’ll look at her after I give Muffy her checkup. Okay?”

“Right,” Stiles says, because he should have thought of that.

*

Stiles drops the dog off at the vet office, but his groceries are melting, and technically, he really has no tie to this particular dog, so he’s not sure if he should say. Trina, the kind, grandmotherly woman who runs the front desk like a drill sergeant, tells him he may as well just go. They’ll take good care of her and do their best to find out where she belongs.

So Stiles ignores the puppy’s wide, pleading eyes, and gently strokes her muddy head and says, “Dr. Scott will take good care of you. Don’t tell him I called him doctor.”

She trembles up at him and wags her tail and he’s about to change his mind and hang out, but Trina whisks her away and there really is ice cream melting in his jeep right now, so he goes home.

His house is just as empty and echoing as it was when he left, but at least now the fridge is full.

*

Scott calls at six.

“Dude, you left.”

“The ice cream was melting,” Stiles says, though he still feels some guilt.

“Hmm. Well. She doesn’t have a microchip or a tattoo but we’re working with animal control to see if anyone reported her missing. We’ve got her cleaned up, put her on an IV drip for fluids because she was pretty dehydrated. She’s about three months old. She had a lesion on her back leg, we don’t think it’s an animal bite, so rabies shouldn’t be a concern but we’ve given her a shot for it anyway. It looks more like road rash.”

“Road rash?” Stiles echoes, eyes widening, because he’s dealt with that sort of injury on the job. “How does a dog get road rash?”

“Being thrown from a car, generally,” Scott says, voice hard. 

Stiles closes his eyes. “Who would do that?” he says. 

“Hopefully not her owner. I talked to your dad about it and he’s investigating, making sure if we do manage to track down her owner, that they had nothing to do with the injury. If they _did_ , they can be fined for it, but unfortunately, animal abuse punishments are nowhere as severe as they need to be.”

“What are you going to do with her now? Do you need help with the bill? Should we have a fundraiser? I’m pretty sure my dad’ll host a Sheriff Dept. Barbecue, that always makes tons of money, and—”

“She can’t stay here,” Scott interrupts. “She’s not doing well. She’s petrified of the other dogs, she’s stressed out, she’s aggravating the wound, and she won’t eat. It’s not a good situation.”

“You can’t just throw her out!” Stiles says.

“Jesus, Stiles. We’re not going to throw her out.” He pauses, just for a moment, and then says, “We’re hoping you’ll keep her.”

Stiles is silent. He can’t, he knows he can’t – not only does this place not allow dogs, but he hasn’t got the time for a dog and Scott knows it. He hasn’t even got time for a cat with his schedule.

“Just for the weekend,” Scott says.

And Stiles _does_ have the weekend off.

“I can’t keep her longer,” he says. 

“But you’ll do it?”

He remembers her eyes, her trembling, her wagging tail, and sighs. “Yeah, Scott. I’ll do it.”

And then he goes out and buys 27 dog toys, a brand new water and food bowl, a leash, a dog bed, and 7 pounds of top of the line dog food before going to pick her up.

*

Friday night, the puppy (who Stiles has temporarily named Puddle in honour of the one she left on his floor within two minutes of being carried up the stairs) curls up on the doggy bed and sleeps for six hours straight without moving. Scott had said she might, since she’d been too anxious to sleep at the vet’s office, and who knew how long she’d been lost, hurt and afraid before then.

Stiles watches her, sitting on the floor in silence, every now and again rolling a ball towards her doggy bed in case she decides to wake up and play, but she doesn’t.

Shift work messes up his waking hours, but it’s nice to have something new to think about rather than the darkness and the sadness and trying to figure out what to watch on Netflix.

He falls asleep near dawn and she wakes him an hour later, crying and pawing at the door. He’s half away when he stumbles down the stairs and into the little backyard he shares with the other tenants. She hops into his arms happily enough after she pees, and doesn’t seem to mind at all when he flops back into bed with her still cradled against his chest. She snuffles around and curls up tucked in his armpit, her nose cold and wet against the side of his neck, and she seems to think sleeping the morning away is the best idea.

On Saturday, she hobbles after the balls he rolls around the apartment floor, her tail wagging a million miles an hour. She’s got pain medication in case the bandaged up wound on her back leg bothers her, and antibiotics she’d taken willingly enough to help with infection, but the injury doesn’t seem to slow her down at all.

She’s happy and curious and explores his place and doesn’t seem to mind the slanted, warped floor boards or the drafts to the drippy faucet in the bathroom that Stiles hasn’t gotten around to fixing.

They go for a walk in the afternoon, but she only makes it half a block before she’s tired out, flopping on the grass and refusing to get up again. Stiles remembers from his sprained ankle that going anywhere on an injured leg takes about eight times the energy, so he scoops her up and carries her the rest of the way around the block, and she falls asleep in his arms.

Saturday night, she plays a gentle game of tug –of–war with Stiles and then sits down with a squeaky toy and chews it and chews it, startling every time it squeaks. Her tail beats against the floorboards and the apartment isn’t so lonely anymore.

Sunday morning, Stiles has to get up early against his will, because he and his dad have a standing appointment to meet for brunch every Sunday they can, and neither happens to be working. He worries about leaving Puddle home alone, but she’s rolling happily in her doggy bed filled with toys, kicking at the ceiling and smiling at him upside down when he bends to rub her belly, so he reassures himself that she’s a dog – she’ll be fine for a few hours, and he goes.

At brunch, he tells his dad about her favourite toys, about how sometimes she gets so full of energy that she zips around in circles, zooming randomly with her tail straight out behind her, about how she doesn’t sleep in her doggy bed anymore because she sleeps wherever he happens to be, cradled in the crook of his elbow or on his lap. He talks about how hard she tries to scratch at the door when she needs to go out but how sometimes she’s having so much fun with her toys or with him that she forgets and has an accident and then looks so guilty about it. He tells him about how well she takes her medication and how well she gets around with the bandage on and how happy she is when they watch Chopped marathons together.

And his dad says, “Only for the weekend, huh, son?”

And Stiles looks away and says, “Yeah, of course, why?”

And when he goes home again, his apartment filled with drifting feathers from the pillow that Puddle attacked and tore apart while he was gone, because clearly, that pillow had done something and needed to be vanquished. And Puddle is sitting in the middle of the falling feathers, tail wagging, staring up like it was her first snowfall, and Stiles laughs so hard, his stomach hurts, and he’s not lonely anymore.

*

Monday, Scott calls and says, “We found her owner!”

And Stiles looks down at where she’s sleeping, curled up like a loaf of bread in his hands, and says, “Oh.”

“He reported her missing on Wednesday and has been frantically looking for her ever since. His little boy was walking her in the park and she slipped out of the collar. Someone else must have hurt her, we really have no way of knowing. He’s on his way there to pick her up, is that OK?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says. “Yes, of course.”

Because he’s got to work tonight anyway, and wouldn’t want to leave her home alone. Besides, he can’t have a dog here, it’s against the rules, and Puddle deserves more than this tiny apartment with its drafts and its sloped ceilings and its warped floors, and more than Stiles, who sleeps weird hours and is sometimes so tired and so small and so sad that he can’t remember how to play tug-of-war or even how to do anything except watch Netflix. Not when the other option is a family that searched all weekend for her and a little boy who had all the energy in the world to play with her. 

“Are you okay?” Scott asks, and Stiles can hear him frowning.

“Of course I am,” he says. “I gotta go.”

He’s become an expert of moving Puddle without waking her, and he transfers her gently to a pillow on the couch before gathering up all her toys and carefully packing them into grocery bags. He folds up her little blanket, her favourite stuffy, the sweater of his that she’d claimed and chewed half the sleeve off. He empties and cleans her new food dish and puts that in the bag too, with her medication and the fresh bandages Scott had sent him home with. He sets the bag by the door and then puts the dog food beside it, and her doggy bed, and then he looks around and none of her things are left on the floor and the only evidence that there’s a dog there at all is Puddle herself, a puppy loaf on the couch.

He picks her up carefully and she’s wagging her tail even before she wakes, and then licking his cheek. “Your family is coming,” he tells her. “They’ve been looking for you.”

And she yawns and blinks at him and there’s a knock at the door.

“Gracie!” a little boy – maybe four – shouts, throwing both hands in the air. He’s got glasses and a stub nose and a mess of dark hair, but he’s vibrating with joy and Stiles can feel that same joy shaking in Puddle – in Gracie – so he squats down and hesitates only a moment, his fingers unwilling to unclench their hold.

He kisses Gracie on the head and says, “Be a good girl,” (but she’s always a good girl) and hands her to the boy, cautioning him to be careful of her bandage, but he needn’t have bothered. Gracie is ecstatic, knocking the boy backwards with her enthusiasm and then she’s licking him all over his little face and he’s shrieking with laughter, which only makes her tail wag faster.

“Thank you,” the boy’s dad says, earnest, and Stiles looks up at him and stares. He’s tall and broad and even from this awkward angle, Stiles can see that he’s beautiful – bright eyes and dark hair and a sharp jaw and cheekbones.

Stiles scrambles to his feet and tries not to gawk with his mouth open, and says, “It’s no problem, really. She’s just got a scrape on her leg – I bet Scott told you. Here, uhm, here, her medication is in this bag, as well as a few of her things, just to help her, over the weekend, while she was here. Uh. There are some toys. And a blanket. And a dish – I don’t need them, I don’t… have a dog. So you should take them, if you want. And the food!”

The dad is looking a little overwhelmed, holding the bag of Gracie’s things. He pulls out Stiles’ chewed up sweater and Stiles flushes a little and shrugs and says, “She likes to sleep with it?”

“Oh,” says the dad. He looks around – at the apartment over Stiles’ shoulder, at the warped floors and slopey ceiling, at the dripping faucet, and then at Stiles himself, running his eyes from Stiles’ flushing face, down over his shoulders, his t-shirt that isn’t the cleanest, down to the floor and back up again, and his smile is softer than before.

“I’m Derek,” he says. “Thank you for finding Gracie. Oliver couldn’t sleep all weekend because he was so worried.”

“Stiles,” he says, looking down again at Gracie and Oliver and letting out a breath that had gotten stuck somewhere in his tight chest. “She’s a good dog. I really didn’t mind.”

Derek nods slowly and then looks at Stiles again, bites his lip, and says, “Do you have a pen?”

Stiles doesn’t, but he finds one in a drawer, and hands it to Derek, who takes Stiles’ hand, flips it over, and writes on his palm.

“My number,” he says, blowing on the ink. “If you ever want to come by to see us – to see Gracie. Oliver would probably like it.” He smiles, a crooked, hopeful sort of smile, and adds, “We’d love to cook you dinner to thank you for taking such good care of her.”

Stiles smiles but it feels fake on his face and says, “Yeah, sure,” and then Derek and Oliver leave and he washes his hand until the number is too faded to read, because he doesn’t need a dinner to thank him for taking care of Puddle. That’s silly. He wouldn’t want to intrude.

And then he has a nap before work, goes to work, comes home, and it’s empty and gray and his chest is rattling with the emptiness, so he sleeps all the next day until it’s time to go back, and a few days later, when he finds a ball Puddle had lost under the couch, he squeezes it in his hand for a few seconds before throwing it out.

He doesn’t have time for a dog. He’s fine. He’s not lonely. He’s just a little sad. He has no time or room for a dog, or for anything else.

He’s fine.

*

Three weeks later, Stiles is at the park, sitting on a bench, head tipped back, staring up at the sky, enjoying a sweet summer day. He’d escaped his claustrophobic apartment and forced himself out for a walk, and he has no regrets. The park is filled with families clustered together, talking and laughing, playing games, having picnics, or just relaxing, and Stiles still feels disconnected and empty, but the feeling is less out here, with the sunshine and the bird song and laughing children all around.

He closes his eyes and breathes and it’s a little easier, and then he hears shouting in the distance. He doesn’t turn to look because it’s probably a game of tag gone wrong, and then then he is _attacked_.

A tiny bundle of energy launches at him from the side, slamming into his chest, and before Stiles can react with the proper degree of panic, he sees that his assailant is a little Cavalier King Charles Spaniel with a frantically wagging tail, more intent on licking him than murdering him.

Puddle—Gracie! Gracie has a new collar, a shining tag proudly proclaiming her name hanging from it, and her leg is all healed now, and she’s whining with every lick, as if she’s scolding him for staying away for so long.

He can’t help it – Stiles laughs, because it’s laugh or cry at this point and really, if he starts crying, it’s possible he won’t ever manage to stop.

So when Oliver and Derek come running down the path, frantic and out of breath, Stiles is just sitting there, laughing and laughing with Gracie in his arms.

“She must’ve smelled you!” Oliver cries, his face splitting with a grin. “Aw, Gracie remembers you!”

Stiles manages to get up, setting her gently on the ground, and Oliver snaps her leash back on before she can run off again, but all she seems intent on doing is running figure 8s between Stiles’ legs and Derek’s legs, tangling them up in her leash like a scene out of 101 Dalmatians.

“I thought she would forget me,” Stiles says, and Derek huffs.

“You’re not very forgettable,” he says. “You never called.”

Stiles shrugs. “You didn’t need to make me dinner to thank me for finding your dog,” he says. Gracie yaps at him and he squats down to pet her. 

Oliver crosses his little arms over his chest and says, “See, Dad, I told you he didn’t know it was ‘sposed to be a date.”

Stiles blinks at him and then blinks up at Derek, who is flushing and rolling his eyes at the same time. “Of course he knew – you did know. Right?” he says.

Stiles straightens up slowly, frowning, just a little. A date? It had been a date? Super hot, sweet, Derek had asked him on a date and he’d missed it?

“A date?” he echoes, just to be sure.

Derek blinks at him and Stiles blinks back and then Derek says, “Yeah. If you want.”

And Stiles _shouldn’t_ want. Stiles has a tough schedule and a tough job and he doesn’t have time or space for dogs or dates or, jeez, endearing children, or – or – but he’s starting to think maybe he should _make_ the time, and the space.

He’s starting to think that maybe, when his boss worriedly asks him if he’s handling things okay, he should tell the truth and say no. He’s starting to think that maybe an empty, gray apartment and an empty, rattling chest aren’t _enough_ for him. He’s starting to think that maybe, instead of only having the time and the energy to hold other people’s hands when they are frightened or hurt or alone, he should also have the time and the energy to let other people hold his, when he is frightened or hurt or alone.

So maybe he’ll talk to his boss at work tomorrow and ask about that counselling program that’s on all the “Don’t Get Burned Out – PTSD Awareness” posters at work. So maybe he’ll tell his dad and Scott that he’s _not_ okay. 

And maybe, maybe, he’ll make room for a date with tall, dark and handsome Derek Hale.

“Okay,” he says, shy, and Derek smiles at him, his cheeks still pink, and Oliver is shouting about kooties and Gracie has all three of them all tangled up together, and for the first time in he can’t remember how long, Stiles breathes in and in and in and nothing rattles.


End file.
